Dricus Du Plessis felt Khamzat Chimaev’s strength, but still wouldn’t put his money on him against Alex Pereira.
Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) was taken down 12 times and controlled for over 21 minutes in a lopsided title loss to Chimaev at UFC 319. Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) called out Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC), who reclaimed his light heavyweight title with an 80-second TKO of Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 320.
Chimaev thinks Pereira is a very good matchup for him, but Du Plessis disagrees.
“He’s always had crazy callouts,” Du Plessis said of Chimaev on Fight Forecast. “Khamzat, there’s no way he beats Pereira. I think Pereira right now is one of the greatest to ever do it in this sport or in any combat sport. He’s a big guy. Even now at light heavyweight, he looked so big against Ankalaev, it was crazy. That’s all hype. I don’t think there’s any realistic chance that ever happens.”
Despite Pereira losing his first fight with Ankalaev definitively at UFC 313, Du Plessis accurately predicted that “Poatan” would win the rematch.
“Alex knows what to do now,” Du Plessis said. “Obviously, he has a great team, so they worked on exactly that. You could just see it from the get go, he was waiting for the kill because he knew as soon as he lets Ankalaev put that pressure on him, he’s going to be able to put him against the fence again. It couldn’t have gone any better for him.”
